February 3, 2004

Primary Thoughts between Ctrl-R's - Feb. 3 edition

Posted by Arcane Gazebo at February 3, 2004 6:25 PM

I'm watching today's primary results come in as I work this evening... Kerry is obviously doing well, but so is Edwards -- so far he's up by a full 15% in South Carolina where I was expecting more like 5%. Oklahoma looks like a Clark-Edwards tie at the moment with Kerry a close third, but this is at 38% of precincts reporting so the order could easily change. Other states are less exciting with big Kerry leads. Looks bad for Dean, who is under 15% everywhere (way under in many places). (Update: I spoke too soon; it's a Kerry/Dean/Clark tie in New Mexico now that they've got some numbers there; not that 1/3 of New Mexico's delegates will do Dean much good.)

I must say I like the proportional allocation of (at-large) delegates. I can think of my vote as contributing some tiny fraction of a delegate, rather than something that only makes a difference if the vote count is an exact tie. In the end since delegates are, well, quantized my vote still has to push the vote total over some threshhold to make a difference, but that's at least more probable. I like having delegates allocated by district (as opposed to winner-take-all) as well, for similar reasons. Still, under certain circumstances the leading candidate can take the entire state with 51% of the vote, as Kerry is currently doing with Delaware.

Anyway, I'm happy to see Edwards do well - as I've said before I think he's the candidate most likely to defeat Bush (based purely on a cynical style-over-substance view of the American swing voter), and for the less strategic reason that I'd prefer not to have my November ballot consist of a choice between two members of Skull and Bones.